


Pluto

by Swingdelusion



Category: RWBY
Genre: Experimental, Ghosts, Robbery, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25918354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swingdelusion/pseuds/Swingdelusion
Summary: Roman robs a convenience store only to find out the job is more trouble than its worth.





	Pluto

He walked down the street with a swagger. A swagger that couldn’t be quelled by any of the dirty looks he had attracted. The whispers couldn’t hold him back anymore.

Who’s that freak with the ginger hair, his smile creeps me out. Ew! Is he staring at me? Hold on is that kid wearing eyeliner! He had learned to filter out the meaning of words on the street long ago. He could still hear the passing whispers as he’d whistle past.  
Still, the whispers drive him on, pushing him further and further. They only seemed to disappear when he went along with others. Standing in the back of the crowd, blending in. But life was no fun without the whispers.

With all the theatrics he could manage he threw open the convenience shop doors, arms spread wide.

“Alright everybody listen up cause I’m not going to say this again.”

He lowered his arms, certain he had gotten their attention. He wasn’t done, but he was comfortable with the first step.

There were three people in the room. A little girl trying her hardest to eat her ice cream. A father giving him a very rude look, and the poor young Faunus clerk with massive bags under her eyes. She looked like she had been working for weeks without sleep.

He was certain none of them were trained combatants which meant this was going to be easy.

He raised his cane to the sleepy cashier’s nose and gave it a light tap on the counter opening up the end of the cane to reveal the barrel of a long gun.

The cashier’s eyes opened up wide as she froze in place.

“Daddy?” The little girl asked, confused as he gripped her tightly.

“Don’t hurt us. Please.” The man began to beg.

Roman rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Do I look like I’m pointing the gun at you. And you.” He swiftly turned his cheek around so that he was facing the cashier.

“Don’t worry sweetheart. Put the money in the bag and I’ll be on my way.”

She was still frozen.

Roman let out another sigh.

“Are you serious? You acting like this your first time being held up?”

She slowly gave a barely visible nod.

“I’m surrounded by incompetence.” He called out sarcastically emphasizing with his hands all the while. 

Roman turned back to her and leaned in close, dropping the cane below the counter.

“Ok for both of our sakes let me help you with your lines. You take some money out of the register, you keep your hands above the counter, and can kiss me goodbye.” He leaned in to emphasize the last line before reminding her of the gun that was now in her face.

“Or you can throw your life away for the sake of a thankless job that from the looks of it has been exploiting several labor laws.”

The cashier grabbed a bag before she was interrupted by a cane in the face.

Roman let out a long sigh.

“Hands above the counter. I brought my own bags so there will be no need for that thank you.”

Roman handed her a ragged cloth bag.

Every single object possesses its own personal history. If you were to look at the history of this bag you’d learn of a long narrative of a woman doing her best to survive. Her mother has left her the bag and she was doing her best to keep it full. Full of the food her family needed to survive. But the bag saw the inevitable coming. Every month the load was lighter and lighter. Eventually, the bag was handed down to another.  
You’d see a lonely and neglected boy trying to compensate for what he didn’t have. You’d hear whispers as they traveled together with the boy and his bag together forever until the shopping was done. But every boy must grow up and try to fit in. At some point, the boy had begun to use it to fill with stolen money. 

The bag didn’t approve of the boy's usage of him, but that wasn’t what he was worried about. This by whom he had inherited him and been through everything had strayed down a darker path and the bag was unable to stop him.

“FREEZE!”

“Daughter of a…” Roman trailed off. He realized she must have pressed the button when he originally threatened her or when he had been showing off.  
Roman turned to the backup. It wasn’t the police as he had expected, instead of standing there was a girl dressed in black and red. A child without a face.

“What have we here? A huntsman? No, you're too young.” Roman ignored the lack of any defining features while trying to feel a way out of the situation.  
Only one exit, where she was standing. No windows big enough to escape out of. The only option seemed to be to use force. An option he wasn’t too keen on against what appeared to be some kind of huntress.

“Well, little miss I think we can come to some kind of understa…” He fired a shot from his cane at her feet and dashed for the door.

He managed to push past her and bolt out of the building leaving the bag behind. He felt his heartburn and tears fall as he escaped.  
He raised the girl’s ice cream to his face to take a nice bite out of the treat. It had been a while since he’d had any.   
The buildings began to transform around him changing shape as if to dance with the wind rushing through his hair.

“BANG!”

Every single object possesses its own personal history. If you were to look at the history of Roman’s hat you wouldn’t be surprised to know it was young. He picked it up somewhere between his late teens and late twenties.   
It had been faulty since the day it was born. The machines that produced it broke down indefinitely just as they finished making it. The inspectors whose job it was to make sure it was alright must have not done their job properly because it was never able to express itself as every other hat could. It was duller than every other hat on the rack ensuring it never sold and was left to collect dust and flies. 

Eventually, it was tossed onto the street and soaked in the rain losing more and more color every day it stayed on the ground. All seemed lost for it until in an act of pure chance a man picked it up.

“A free hat, and so expressive too! The fellows back at Junior’s are gonna love this.” he chuckled to himself, taking the hat home and hanging it up to dry.  
The hat never regained its old color, but sometimes it swore that it would glow with new colors. It was never able to be expressed as other hats could but Roman never minded that. Truly the man-made the hat, and that hat was his best friend. The hat could never leave him, after all, it was he who chose to wear it again every day.

Roman ran as fast as his legs could carry him. The lights in each dancing house turned off as he passed by. He needed to get away from that faceless huntress.

The problem was no matter how cleverly or how quickly he weaved through the street the huntress was always behind him. He had fired several shots at her but none had even fazed her, despite having several direct hits.

Roman ran through the situations in his head. He couldn’t keep running forever, but the huntress probably could. Roman wiped the emotion from his face and steeled himself. 

He had always done his best to present himself as a very small threat. The huntsman would never feel like they needed to be excessive if he was never a threat. He talked to avoid danger. If he seemed like a flamboyant kid then they would never feel threatened by him.

But he got a feeling that whatever this faceless thing was, it wouldn’t hold back.

One.

Two.

Three.

Roman turned around swinging for the monster's face with all the strength he could muster hoping its aura wouldn’t protect it again.

Every single object possesses its own personal history. If you were to look at the history of his cane you’d learn of a long narrative of a man and his struggle to overcome his own anger. His welcomed dying breath was taken before he was able to overcome his anger and apologize to those he loved.

A cane that leaned against the doorframe as a confusing reminder to his loved ones of their loss and his worst moments. No more happy family dinners, no more bouts of rage.   
The boy wasn’t originally happy to use it, but in time he had made it his own. The cane changed as he held it. It went from an angry lower class gentlemen’s instrument of rage into a suave gentlemen’s dramatic prop. It was the story of a melodic cudgel. Both cruel and crude and at the same time musical.

Roman found himself fighting off the urge to breathe heavily. The huntress was weaker than he thought, she truly fought just like a child would.  
She was gone now, of course. He had escaped to the roof to wait for his transport. He needed to escape. He had lost his cane in the fight leaving him with only one thing. To make matters worse the huntress had just made it to the roof.  
“Well, what now little Red!” He called out to the other side of the roof.

The huntress did not move.

All seemed desperate for him until in an act of pure chance something landed in front of the huntress causing the world to shake. He looked on in horror to see the visage of a large winged Grimm approaching him without hesitation or warning.

It lowered its beak in a blur of motion grabbing its feet and eating him whole. As he was picked off the ground his hat was carried away in the wind. The hat was carried over a twisted cityscape. In the city below a cane was left in a back alley and a now relaxed, but still tired cashier trashes a rugged bag left behind by the criminal that had held her up earlier. And soon a hat falls onto the concrete streets below where a fly lands on it.

The story is over but as the moon sets and the moon rises the story takes an interesting turn.

He walked down the street with a swagger. A swagger that couldn’t be quelled by any of the dirty looks he had attracted. The whispers couldn’t hold him back anymore.

For the man, the night goes on, but to those objects, he held dear a red sun will rise to signal a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a reason I write other works from a first-person perspective. I really like going on tangents when I write. I have a few other RWBY fanfictions I've written, but they really aren't anything I'm proud of. I'm posting this here because it's a short one-shot, I'm proud of it, and I think people discussing it could very beneficial. I wrote another Roman backstory fanfiction a while ago, but this is way better.


End file.
